ISLAMABAD: Amid cheers from a roaring crowd, Pakistani egamers battled to win the grand prize pool money of Rs2 million ($11381) in one of the biggest ever esports tournaments in the heart of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad this week, sponsored by a Dubai-based gaming firm.
Participants played PUBG MOBILE and Valorant on big gaming consoles and PCs at the event, titled as Gamers Galaxy, which was organized by the Dubai-based Galaxy Racer gaming firm at the Pakistan-China Friendship Center in the Pakistani capital.
The two-day tournament, which was set to conclude Sunday night, was one of its kind and witnessed participation of women gamers in the women-dedicated Her Galaxy contest.
Televised in partnership with Ten Sports, the event was attended by UAE-based businessman His Highness Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al-Maktoum, UAE’s ambassador to Pakistan Hamad Obaid Al-Zaabi, and Pakistan’s ruling party leaders Senator Faisal Javed Khan and Sayed Zulfikar Bukhari.
“Gamers Galaxy is going to be an opportunity for players all over Pakistan to participate and get into a prize pool of $100,000. For those interested, this is a community-level event,” said Walid Singer, the Gamers Galaxy staff chief.
“We want this prize to be shared across the community not just among professional players because this is how you’ll see an ecosystem.”
Faisal Javed Khan, a senator from Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, said his government was fully supporting businesses. 
” This platform is a huge platform for the youth of Pakistan. Last year, our IT exports grew by 40 percent for the first time in the history of Pakistan and crossed $2 billion mark,” he said. “We are hoping that in the next 2-3 years we’ll be able to cross $6 billion.”
Fakhar-e-Alam, a TV host and chief executive officer of Galaxy Racer Pakistan, said they were going to bring the first ever professional esports league in Pakistan, called the Supreme Galactic league, followed by school- and college-level tournament, called the Scholars’ Galaxy.
“With this investment in Pakistan, it further solidifies the brotherly relationship between UAE and Pakistan,” he said. “These bilateral things show the commitment of the people of the UAE to the people of Pakistan.”
About the participation of women in the tournament, Alam said they created a separate space to encourage Pakistani women to compete in esports.
Members of Team Clarity, who played Valorant, said their families supported them a lot and the perception that egaming was “unproductive” needed to be changed.
The youngest participant of the event was a 9-year-old girl, Anabia Naveed, who loves to play Tekken, said her father asked her to compete in the tournament, telling her she played the game really well.
World-renowned Tekken player Arslan Siddiqui, also known as Arslan Ash, was also one of the attendees at the event.
“Pakistan has gradually started matching the international-level esports as the government is supporting it. We always needed that support,” he said.
“The difference between Pakistan and international-level is that there the governments support talent, they are provided with jobs, streaming platforms like Twitch, where people earn but in Pakistan little attention is paid to it. My message to the youth is you need to keep a balance between studies and gaming.”
“I think it’s a big opportunity for female gamers who want to compete professionally as this had been a male-dominant industry for a very long time and women from all over the world are excelling now,” said Iqra Khan, a participant of Her Galaxy.
“Pakistani women should not lag behind and we are working hard to make this happen.”